Sahuarita Stingrays aim to teach and encourage all levels of swimmers. We recognize and individually address the needs of each swimmer. Our groups, therefore, are designed to emphasize age and developmentally-appropriate learning. We have a place for every swimmer, and take pride in helping everyone reach their potential!

As you read about the groups below, click through to see the full details about ages, skill level, practice times and more. Your swimmer may seem to fit into multiple groups. This is by design, to allow flexibility for the coaches to choose which group is best for each and every swimmer. Being placed in the "faster" or "slower" group should not be seen as "good" or "bad," but rather as an evaluation of what is currently most appropriate.

The Sahuarita Stingrays coaches further recognize that the most successful swimmers tend to follow the "early diversification, late specialization" model of growth. We encourage our youngest athletes to be involved in multiple activities throughout the year, not just swimming. We want our swimmers to succeed in and out of the pool, and it's hard to do that if you never leave the pool!

As swimmers begin to mature physically and mentally, there is the greatest opportunity for serious improvement and dedicated swim training. In our experience, this doesn't usually happen until around age 11-13 for girls, and 12-14 for boys. While there are exceptions, we have not seen any meaningful correlation between early competitive success as a 10&Under and later competitive success in High School and beyond. In fact there is some evidence that suggests that kids who specialize in swimming too early end up less successful in the long-run than their late coming peers.